4

'I wonder what he's going to do this time,' Del said.

'Play the piano somewhere, dummy.'

'Not your namesake, Jell-O Brains. Uncle Cole. I wonder what it'll be this summer.'

'Is it always different?'

'Sure it is. One summer it was like a circus-clowns and acrobats all over the place. That was when I was a little kid. Another summer, it was like movies. Cowboy movies and cop movies. That was a year I went to movies all the time - I was twelve. Saw a double feature every Saturday. And when I got to Shadowland, every day was like a different movie. I never knew what was going to happen. There was Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe and William Bendix and Randolph Scott - '

'Right there? That's impossible.'

'Well, it looked like them. I know it wasn't them, but… sometimes it was pieces of their movies. He has projectors all over the place. He can make it look like anything is happening. Every summer is like a different performance. I just wonder what it'll be this time.' He paused. 'Because it's always tied in with what's going on before you get there. That's all part of magic, he says - working with what's in your mind. Or on your mind. And with all the stuff that went on this year… ' Del looked decidedly worried for a moment.

'You mean it might be about school?'

'Well, it never has been. Uncle Cole hates schools. He says he's the only person he knows who should be allowed to run a school.'

'But it might be Skeleton and our show and… '

'The fire. Maybe.' Del brightened. 'Whatever it is, we'll learn something.'

'I guess there are some things I'd rather not learn,' Tom said, making the only truly conservative statement of his life.

'Just listen to whatever he says first. When he meets us at the station. That's the clue to everything.'

Tom said, 'The Case of the Famous First Words.'

Del looked uncomfortable again. 'Hey, breakfast is over, huh? Let's get out of here.' He rattled his fork against his plate, looked at the window. The filthy brick backs of office buildings and warehouses slid by, encrusted with fire escapes - some bleak Ohio city. He finally came out with what he had been planning to say. 'Listen, Tom. You have to know… I mean, I should have said before. My uncle - everything I said about him is true. Including that he's half-crazy. He drinks. He drinks one hell of a lot. But that's not the reason, I don't think. He just is half-crazy. Except for the summers, I think he's alone all the time. Magic is everything he's got. So sometimes he gets kind of wild… and if he's been drinking… '

'That's what I thought,' Tom said.

Take care, Red.

'D-s Bud Copeland know him?' Tom asked.

Del nodded. 'He met him once - once when he came to Vermont to get me. I, uh, I broke a leg. It was just an accident. But they met, yeah.' Tom did not have to ask the question. 'Bud wanted me never to go back. I had to talk him into it. He didn't like Uncle Cole. But he didn't understand, Tom. That was all.'

'I get it,' Tom said.

'He's not all crazy,' Del pleaded. 'But he just never got the recognition he should have, and he spends all that time alone. It's okay, really. It's not even half. That's just an expression.'

'But you broke your leg because he got carried away.'

'That's right. But people break their legs skiing all the time.' This had the air of something Del had said many times before - to Bud Copeland and the Hillmans. 'It was just a little break, a hairline break, the doctor called it. I was only in a cast about three weeks, and that's nothing.'

'Did your uncle get the doctor?'

Del colored. 'Bud did. My uncle said it would heal by itself. And he was right. It would have. Maybe not as fast, but it would have healed.'

'And how did it happen?'

'I fell down a sort of a cliff,' Del said. Now his face was very red. 'Don't worry. Nothing like that is ever going to happen again.'